One Week in Nowhere -Erin

One Week in Nowhere (or Pieces of Memories, Recollected)

Ten years ago, you spent an evening dancing and laughing with someone who, until then, had been a mere acquaintance. It was an enchanted, wondrous evening, perfect in the way only summer nights achieve. You stayed up until dawn and watched the sunrise, convinced you could conquer the world.

You left town the next day.

It’s been years and every day since then has felt magical. Things seem to happen: you need money and there’s a twenty in the gutter, just waiting for you to pick it up; need to find a job and someone strikes up a conversation that ends with the promise of an interview; you need a date and the perfect person walks up to you in the bookstore or the bar and flirts.

People seem drawn to you. Children smile at you, dogs jump on you in a happy frenzy, cats tolerate your presence. Days are bright, nights are dazzling, the seasons enchanting.

But lately, that magic has been fading. You’re still successful, but the days feel less magical and more mundane. Terror creeps into your heart at the most random of times. Tasks that were once so easy to accomplish are a little more challenging.

Your memories of that night are cloudy and distant and sometimes you wonder if they happened. The memories of your hometown are foggy. You know of events, people, places, but in a vague, second-hand way, as though someone told you about the details.

And you’ve been dreaming lately. Not unusual, really, but these dreams leave you unsettled and agitated. There’s a voice crying out, but for what, you aren’t sure. Someone is reaching out to you, begging and pleading, but you don’t know what they want. Sometimes you think you see a face, but it remains shrouded in mist, making it impossible to define.

You live with those dreams for a while, the feeling of the magic leaving, until the day a dog - normally so friendly, so ready to jump on you and beg for scratches - growls when you get close.

You don’t know what’s going on. You’re going to find out, though.

This is a game intended for one player character. S/he will go back to their hometown and try to remember what happened the night before they left.

What did happen will depend heavily on the player, the character, and the cards selected. It’s intended to be a short game, with no more than eight scenes total.

Regarding cards: the nature determines the theme of the story. Please pick one of the provided cards, because I have scenarios written for those selections. (If you’d like something a little more collaborative and have an idea not featured in the nature cards, please PM me!)

The provided strength and weakness cards are only suggestions. Feel free to use them or create your own.

Subplots are flexible. I’ve provided some subplots, but feel free to come up with your own. All I ask is that they hint at the (real) reason why the character wants to remember that night.

The character bio should include what they have been doing in the past decade - where they’ve been, their career (or lack of careers), even romantic entanglements. It doesn’t need to be super long, but it should give a brief overview on their history, and should be detailed enough that I can see their personality.

Depending on the nature selected, the game can go in a mature direction, with some violence, Gothic elements, and sexuality appearing. The levels of each - along with other elements - will vary with the cards, and of course will depend on player input.